


All the Trimmings

by jadey36



Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 04:25:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadey36/pseuds/jadey36
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Christmas. Guy is in a mood. Robin can't seem to do anything right. Will their Christmas Day be a disaster?</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Trimmings

**Author's Note:**

> Silly, smutty crack!fic. Unbeta'd, so if you spot any mistakes, I made them.

“Since when,” Robin says, struggling not to laugh, “does Father Christmas wear a black leather suit?”

Guy’s face falls. He’d gone to a lot of trouble, not to mention bloodying his best sword on Nottingham’s last remaining tailor, to get his Santa suit made. Angrily, he rips off his white beard and hurls it at the outlaw. “You’re determined to ruin my bloody Christmas, aren’t you?”

Robin carefully places his goblet of wine on the fire’s hearth and wriggles higher up in the fireside chair, rubbing his eyes. He’d been close to falling asleep, his head full of naughty ideas about how Guy and he might spend Christmas Day together. The last thing he wants is an irate Guy ranting at him. “I’m just saying, that’s all.” He pats his knee, inviting Guy to sit on it.

“I’m Father Christmas,” Guy says, some of his anger falling away as he eyes the wine-flushed, tousle-haired outlaw, the current object of his desire. “You’re supposed to sit on _my_ knee.”

“Happy to oblige.” Robin comes unsteadily to his feet. “Can I tell you what presents I’d like as well?”

“You’ll be fucking sitting on your present.” 

A smile tugs at Guy’s lips as he recalls what had happened soon after Robin had sat on his lap last Christmas Eve.

Pouting, Robin plonks back into the fireside chair. “I bought you a pair of leather boxer shorts and a leather necklace with matching earrings last year. Much as I like what you keep inside said boxer shorts, I would rather have something I can actually use, or wear, or admire this year.”

Guy thinks about showing Robin something he can admire, but changes his mind when it dawns on him that it’s getting late and he will have to be up in the early hours if he is to cook the goose by lunchtime. “And you can douse that fucking fire as well,” he says, pointing at the roaring flames in the grate.

Robin’s eyes widen. “You _were_ serious about coming down the chimney?”

Guy turns on his heel, muttering something about Robin having no sense of occasion. He clomps towards the front door, shouting, “Don’t wait up,” over his shoulder as he does so.

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Robin calls cheerily. “Father Christmas might not come otherwise.”

Guy’s answer is to slam the door on his way out sending a cascade of snow sliding off the roof.

Ignoring Guy’s howls of rage, Robin goes back to the fire and his wine.

~

Robin wakes to find he is still slumped in the fireside chair. Wincing, he turns his head towards the window overlooking Locksley village. Through the gaps in the shutters, he can see that the sky is light. It is Christmas Day.

From the kitchen he can hear banging and scraping and all manner of curses. He knows it’s Guy as all their servants have long since gone, frightened away by Guy constantly brandishing his sword and threatening to disembowel them if they don’t tuck his bed corners correctly, plump his pillows or wash his undergarments in soft soap. (Guy had been pretending to be a long-staying guest at Locksley Manor, even though he’d never used the guest room, preferring instead to spend every night in Robin’s bed).

From the constant stream of swear words and splintering pottery, Robin guesses that the Christmas lunch preparations are not going well. Deciding it might be prudent to keep out of Guy’s way, Robin pulls on his boots, dons his winter cloak, picks up his quiver and bow and sneaks to the back of the house, jumping out a window into the freshly fallen snow.

There is a Christmas Day market going on in Nottingham, as every year. Robin decides it might be a good idea to go thieve a present for Guy, see if he can’t placate the over-houseworked man.

Halfway to Nottingham, he bumps into a fur-wrapped Marian. She tells him that she was heading for Locksley in order to give Robin his Christmas present (Marian is unaware of Robin and Guy’s shenanigans, believing Robin’s lie about him having Gisborne under house arrest).

“Is it wise leaving Sir Guy unattended. What if he escapes?” she asks, leaning towards Robin and squinting at his face.

Robin wonders if she’s inspecting the dark circles under his eyes, perhaps thinking that the stress of being Robin Hood is keeping him awake at night. If she knew the truth behind those sleepless nights, Robin is certain those deadly hairpins of hers would be winging their way in his direction before he could so much as blink.

“Don’t worry. Gisborne’s chained to the kitchen sink at the moment.” _Unless that was the kitchen sink I heard breaking earlier,_ he thinks.

“Well, that’s all right, then,” Marian says distractedly, patting her perfectly curled locks with her furry-gloved hands.

Robin peers at Marian’s face, suspecting that her glowing cheeks have nothing to do with generous amounts of blusher and everything to do with taking sly sips from the sherry cups that her father, Edward, kindly hands out to their house-servants every Christmas Day morning.

“So,” she says. “Shall I go to Locksley and wait for you there while you go feed the poor of Nottingham?”

Robin suffers a moment’s guilt, remembering his lie about feeding the poor of Nottingham last Christmastide when he’d in fact gone to the local tanner to have the leather boxer shorts, necklace and earrings made for Guy.

“No,” Robin says, thinking of Guy in his white, frilled pinny, stuffing a goose the size of a cow, whipping up crème brulees and fussing over apple sauce and gravy. “You can’t go to Locksley.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s burned down.”

Marian’s eyes widen in horror. “But you said you left Guy chained up in the kitchens. I know he’s your enemy, but honestly Robin, if you’ve—”

“No, no,” Robin says hastily, wishing to God he’d thought this one through. “When I said I’d chained Gisborne to the sink, I meant after I’d removed him, and the sink, from the kitchens.”

“Oh, silly me,” Marian says, smiling brightly.

_Definitely been at the sherry,_ Robin thinks. He also thinks that there’s every chance that Locksley Manor will be nothing but smouldering ruins by the time he returns to the house, especially when he recalls the fiasco last Christmas Day when Guy decided to set light to a plum pudding using Greek fire he’d swiped from the sheriff’s strong room.

“In that case,” Marian says, “you must come to Knighton. I’m sure my father won’t mind having another mouth to feed.”

“Actually,” Robin says, “I was just on my way to Bonchurch to go visit Much and Eve.”

Without asking, Marian loops her arm through Robin’s arm. “Excellent. I’ll come with you.”

Inwardly, Robin groans. He should definitely lay off the booze; it was addling his brain, especially when it came to making up decent lies. “Yes,” he says, forcing a smile. “I’m sure Eve would like some help with the new baby.”

Marian wrinkles her face in disgust and says she’d rather embroider Christmas angels onto a mile-wide tapestry than look after a smelly, yowling baby. She suggests that Robin goes alone and wonders if he might come visit her at Knighton after he leaves Bonchurch. Robin says that he’ll definitely come, privately thinking, _just as soon as Guy plays with my party popper._

Happy that the matter is settled, Marian does an about face and totters, in a slalom-like manner, back towards Knighton.

Robin decides not to worry about keeping his promise to visit Marian later; with any luck, she’ll get back on the sherry and won’t even remember meeting Robin let alone making plans for a visit. Right now, he needs to get to Nottingham market, nick Guy a present and hurry on home, just in case his lie about Locksley Manor burning down is in danger of coming true. He just hopes that Guy will be in a better mood than he was earlier and that none of the flying pottery comes his way. After the collapsing bed and the falling masonry incident last year, he’s hoping that this year’s Christmas will be a little less injurious.

~

Guy is not in a better mood. Dishevelled, sweat beading his brow, hair everywhere, apron covered in gravy and other unidentifiable foodstuffs, he weaves towards Robin.

“Guy, have you been at the brandy?”

“Fucking, beady-eyed, gizzard-spewing, fucking goose,” Guy snarls.

Robin sniffs. He can smell burning. “You did pluck the goose before you put it in the oven, didn’t you?”

Slumping into the fireside chair, Guy mumbles, “Mostly.”

Robin offloads his weaponry and cloak. Then, dragging a second fireside chair next to Guy’s, he sits, pulling off his boots with a happy sigh.

“Well,” Guy says, poking Robin in the arm. “Where is it, then?”

“Where’s what?”

“My fucking present.”

Robin eyes Guy up and down, thinking perhaps now is not a good time for him to open the shiny, expensive (not that Robin paid for it) glass mirror. One look at his less than pristine appearance is sure to send Guy over the edge and Robin is too tired to be picking splinters of glass out his hair and off the floor.

“Later,” Robin says. “After all, Christmas is all about the anticipation. A few seconds tearing paper and it’s all but over. Now, how’s lunch coming along? I’m starving.”

Guy glares at Robin. “Anticipation, right?”

Robin nods.

“Then anticipate lunch, because there’s no way I’m going back in that fucking kitchen. I quit.”

Noticing Guy is on the verge of tears, Robin decides that the Earl of Huntingdon and hero of Acre should come to the rescue. “I’ll go finish the lunch while you . . . er . . . go tidy yourself up.”

Guy glances down at his soiled apron and bursts into tears.

Robin pours him a large goblet of wine and goes off in search of the kitchen.

~

“Lunch,” Robin shouts triumphantly, “is served.”

Guy, who had been asleep, thanks to the generous goblet of wine Robin had given him earlier, snaps open his eyes. He turns in Robin’s direction and, after a moment or two, manages to focus on the food-laden dining table. He then looks at the shuttered windows and the numerous lit candles dotted around the hall. “Fucking supper, more like.” After a third attempt, he manages to successfully rise from the fireside chair and stagger over to the table.

“I’m sorry,” Robin says, hiccupping. “It took me a while to figure out how everything works in the kitchen. I did the best I could.”

Guy eyes the lumpy custard, the burnt Brussels sprouts and the solid-looking gravy. “I’d hate to see your worst.”  He pulls out a chair and plonks onto it.

“Never mind.” Robin smiles and lifts up a jug of wine. “There’s plenty of this stuff, at least.”

After a mostly unpalatable Christmas dinner, eaten in morose silence, Robin suggests that Guy and he play some party games.

Fuelled by half a gallon of mulled wine and the need to let off some steam, Guy agrees.

The two men play Pin the Tail on the Donkey – their version; Sardines – their version and Blind Man’s Buff – their version.

Tired and wearing considerably less clothing than they started out with, they then decide it’s time to take a break and eat some supper. Guy is in a much better mood now and says he will go make them some sandwiches, forgetting his earlier declaration of quitting the kitchen.

Robin is busily writing dirty jokes, scrunching them inside last year’s used Christmas crackers, when Guy returns with a plateful of cold goose sandwiches.

Robin waves them away. “No thanks. I’m still picking bits of feather out my teeth from lunch.”

“Suit yourself.” Guy bravely takes a bite of sandwich and declares it ‘not bad’.

“Crackers?” Robin suggests, with a mischievous grin.

“Let me empty my mouth first,” Guy says, chewing vigorously. He has no desire to repeat last year’s choking episode, even though Robin’s Heimlich Manoeuvre had led to some rather inventive sex on the fireside rug.

By the time Guy has finished reading all of Robin’s jokes, absurdly pleased that Robin’s grammar could do with some improvement, he’s laughing heartily. The final joke is so funny that he ever so slightly wets himself. That’s when he recalls he hasn’t yet given Robin his present.

Robin follows Guy upstairs with some trepidation. If Guy has papered their bedchamber walls with leather, Robin is not certain he will be able to pretend delight. _Give me leather socks any day,_ he thinks.

Guy opens the bedchamber door with a flourish. “Ta da,” he says, waving a hand at the big bed that dominates the middle of the room.

Robin eyes the leather sheets, says, “Didn’t we try these before and didn’t I keep sliding off them?”

“Wait.” Guy holds up a staying hand and walks over to the bed. “I got this idea from a mother and baby catalogue.”

With some difficulty, Guy taps and slots the leather-covered bed rails into place at the two longest sides of the bed. “See,” he says, flopping onto the bed and rolling from side to side. “No falling off.”

Laughing, Robin joins him on the bed, thinking that perhaps their somewhat disastrous Christmas Day might have a happy – if rather slippery slurpy – ending after all.

 


End file.
